Counting on Fall and Other Number Books

 My son is learning to read numbers, so we have been hunting down books with numbers in the titles and text. Here is a list and review of a few of them! 

Counting on Fall by Lizann Flatt 

This isn't your typical counting book. It poses questions about things you can count in nature, like leaves, nuts, fruits, seedpods, and animals who migrate, like whales and geese. When we couldn't possibly count something, we could talk about math using terms like "more" or "less" instead. It's a fun way of making things open-ended while encouraging little ones to stop and look around at nature during autumn while building number sense. This book was written and illustrated by two Canadians, so my son learned new animals including pronghorn antelopes, pikas, and grackles. There are other books in this Math in Nature series, Sorting through Spring, Sizing Up in Winter, and Shaping Up in Summer.

Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes by Mem Fox

Mem Fox is a well-known picture book author. Her books feature text that is simple to read and often repetitive. This one has a special message that as much as we are different, we are alike. It is a neat way to subtly show children that our backgrounds may vary, but we are all humans. Here is a simple (free) number writing activity I made:

Two Peas in a Pod by Annegert Fuschuber

We chose this partly because of the title and partly because I have two daughters who were born on the same day. We are working on reading numbers and my son also finds it fun to read about twins. It teaches two facts about each animal - how many babies they have, and something special about them. I made a free printable for you to use with or without the book. It helps with reading a simple chart.

This one is similar to a counting book we recently read about the Blue Ridge Mountains (see below for the link). Both books include animals and the number of babies they typically have, counting from 1-10 (and beyond in this book). The theme here, like in Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes, is that sometimes babies may look alike, but there are ways to tell them apart and celebrate them as individuals. It was originally written in Austria and now appears to be out of print. 

Cowgirl Rosie and Her Five Baby Bison

This book is great for PreK and K students. If you're working on the letter B, Rosie's five baby bison have letter B names. She takes them on an adventure and then loses one or two each time. Like Two Peas in a Pod, there are twins in this book! Them being twins doesn't affect the plot, other than them getting lost at the same time, while the singletons disappeared individually. My son and I enjoyed subtracting and saying number sentences that went along with what was happening on the pages. Download the free activity printables here.

Sixteen Cows by Lisa Wheeler

This one is a good one to pair with the one above. It's a great lesson in cooperation and a fun way to do some math.

One of Each by Mary Ann Hoberman

Olive Tolliver is an introvert who prefers to spend his time alone, but he comes to realize life can be a bit lonely when there's no place for friends. Peggoty Small shows him a different perspective and realizes that sharing is caring.

Three Pigs, One Wolf, and Seven Magic Shapes by Grace Maccarone

This book was so much fun for my son. We've been doing a shape hunt Google Slide book and this helped us wrap it up. He has been into making images out of shapes ever since he was given the Melissa and Doug shape puzzles and then he discovered my pattern block design cards, which added more shapes beyond the squares, ovals, rectangles, and triangles from the M & D kit. What we liked most was the tangram twist on The Three Little Pigs as the Big Bad Wolf has a twin brother named Big Brad Wolf. We are all about twins in our family as I am one and I have a set, too. 

Grab the free tangram tracing and drawing printables here.

Ten Pigs: An Epic Bath Adventure by Derek Anderson

This is a nice easy read when you're working on sight words and numbers. My son laughs out loud at the silly pigs and easy rhymes.

Here is the read aloud.

Five Little Penguins Slipping on the Ice by Steve Metzger

This book follows the plot of Five Little Monkeys. It varies a bit in that it has different rhyming lines, but it's repetitive enough for a young reader to predict or read what comes next.

Here is the read aloud video.

See full posts on other number books:

Fourteen Monkeys: A Rainforest Rhyme

Blue Ridge Babies 1, 2, 3: A Counting Book

13 Days of Halloween (and other Halloween books like Six Creepy Sheep)

 Ten Orange Pumpkins

20 Hungry Piggies